Regional clozapine, ECT, and lithium treatment frequency related to lower adolescent excess suicide mortality for 15- to 19-year-olds
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, March 16, 2023 (HealthDay News) — For male adolescents with severe mental illness, suicide prevention may benefit from clozapine, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and lithium (CEL) treatment, according to a study published online March 14 in Nature Communications.
Adrian E. Desai Bostr ¶m, M.D., Ph.D., from the Ume ¥ University in Sweden, and colleagues used nationwide registers between 2016 and 2020 to examine prevention of suicide among adolescents across 21 Swedish regions.
The researchers identified a negative correlation between adolescent excess suicide mortality (AESM) and regional frequencies of CEL use among adolescents and males (β = â0.613 and â0.404, respectively), while no correlation was seen among females. Regions with the lowest-quartile AESM had the highest CEL usage among male adolescents. In 15- to 19-year-olds, regional CEL treatment frequency was related to lower AESM, reflecting potential treatment efficacy, treatment compliance, or better mental health care quality.
“The results signal that early intervention with medico-psychiatric treatment for severe mental illness can reduce suicide rates in late-teenage boys,” Desai Bostr ¶m said in a statement. “The next step for the research group is to evaluate whether these treatments can also be protective for other severe psychiatric diseases with high mortality rates and a relative lack of effective treatment. For example, they hope to investigate whether ECT could be used for severely affected eating disorder patients with comorbid depression.”
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